


There Is No Us

by Whystickaround



Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 21:25:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17691347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whystickaround/pseuds/Whystickaround
Summary: The One Where Marta Kauffman Is A Colossal Homophobe and created this universe where both Grace and Frankie are going to have to go through a lot of heartbreak before they find their way back to one another.





	1. Married

  
It’s not like she was delusional, she knew this might happen one day, but _oh_ _god_ , it still hurt.   
  
“Married.” She echoes softly as she feels her knees hit the sand. “ _Married_.” The word feels foreign on her tongue, which is ironic considering she spent most of her life tucked safely behind that title herself.   
  
“Oh god.” Grace says to no one, as if the word is just now sinking in for her too. She kneels beside Frankie but doesn’t dare touch her.   
  
Hadn’t Grace just called her her partner? Hadn’t she herself just referred to Grace as her wife the other week? _Mrs_ _Skolka_. Frankie feels nauseous.   
She wants to say _, what the fuck Grace, we had a fight, that doesn’t mean you can just marry someone else._ But Frankie is not her partner, not really, so she doesn’t get to feel like she’s been cheated on, again. But she does.   
  
“Why?”  
  
“What?” Grace asks, clearly not the question she was expecting.   
  
“Why?” Is all Frankie can get out.   
  
“Oh _god_ , Frankie, don’t ask me that.”  
  
“You don’t even know why you married him?” The words sting to say but she’s not going to let her skirt around this.   
  
“I-“  
  
Frankie interrupts her immediately, “Are you here to get my blessing? Because it’s a little late for that.”  
  
“No. No. I wo- wouldn’t ask you to give that. I don’t know if I could if the roles were reversed.”  
  
“ _Ha_. I would never do this to you.” She snaps and for a second she thinks Grace might bring up Santa Fe, but even she knows that she doesn’t have the upper hand here.   
  
“No.” Grace agrees solemnly, “No, you wouldn’t.”  
  
Frankie pauses, “Are you here for me to yell at you?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Good. Because I don’t feel like yelling at you.”  
  
“Okay.” Grace replies, defeatedly.   
  
“So I guess we both get that we want them? Except you also got a husband and I get a house to myself.” It hits as intended and Frankie hears Grace gasp slightly.   
  
“I... I was thinking maybe I wouldn’t leave. I know it’s not ideal... but maybe eventually Nick could move in with us? It doesn’t have to be right away?”  
  
Frankie doesn’t respond right away, “Grace.” Grace waits silently, “I think you need to move out.”  
  
“Oh.” Frankie watches Graces fingers sift through the sand around her.   
  
“I just think it’ll be too hard.” Frankie whispers and her heart feels like glass cracking within her. If Grace looks her in the eyes it’ll shatter and cut her up beyond repair.   
  
“Why does it feel like we’re breaking up?” Grace asks with a hollow laugh and Frankie hears it catch in her throat.   
  
Frankie doesn’t say anything and the words get picked up by the breeze and carried off to sea. For a split second Frankie wishes it were her, feels like she’d be able to breathe better underwater than she can right now next to Grace. She wants to say, _how can you justify saying that without questioning what those words really mean?_ Wants to ask what ' _you’re my partner and I need you' means to someone who just got married._ Wants to say _don’t you see the way I look at you?_ But she doesn’t, and eventually Grace stands up.   
  
“Well... I guess I’ll go then.”  
  
“Yeah I guess you should.” Frankie looks up at her then. Her face looks long and tired, her mouth still slightly open as her hair blows around her like a lazy tornado.   
  
“I do love you Frankie.” She whispers and doesn’t even reach up to wipe the tear falling down her face.   
  
Frankie stumbles up to her feet. Grace doesn’t offer her a hand, and she notices.   
  
“I love you too Grace.” She says really looking at her for the first time. “But I think that means something different to us both.”  
  
Grace looks back towards the ocean, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Frankie can’t help but notice the deep laugh lines around her mouth, and the way her nose is sniffling, from the cold and from the crying. She’s so beautiful right now, in this moment of vulnerability. Frankie knows she’ll never be able to paint anything quite so beautiful.   
  
“This isn’t goodbye forever, you know?” She has to will herself from reaching out to the other woman. “I meant it when I said I needed you.” Her voice shakes and she curses herself. “Feel free to go back and get whatever you need to take to Nicks. I’m going to stay out here for a while.”  
  
Grace nods slowly. Her movements appearing almost mechanic as she turns around and starts walking away. She looks back one more time.   
  
“I’m sorry.”   
  
Two words and it takes everything for Frankie not to collapse back onto the ground. Takes everything not run to her and say, _It's_   _okay! You made a mistake and we both know it but it’ll all be okay because we’re Grace and Frankie and my god, look at all we’ve gotten through together? Don’t you see how much I love you?_  
  
“Yeah. I’m sorry too.” She whispers instead and sits back down on the cold sand.   
  
  



	2. Afterwards

Grace hesitates before the door to Nick’s penthouse, and for a moment she wonders if she should knock, but then she remembers her husband is on the other side of the door and this is her home now so she uses the key he gave her and wishes she felt the same contentment she felt when her and Frankie got their keys to the beach house back from Kareena. The keys back to their home.  
  
“Ah just the woman I was hoping to see.” Nick’s charm radiates from the kitchen where he’s getting himself a glass of water. Unlike Grace, Nick is still in honeymoon bliss so she’s not surprised to see him still in his housecoat.  
  
“Well I sure hope there won’t be any other women coming through here anytime soon.” She says as she sets down her two small suitcases.  
  
“You should have told me you were picking some stuff up, I could have helped.” He says coming over and pecking her on the lips. “How’d it go with Kooky?”  
  
“I’ve always hated that nickname.”  
  
“So not good, hey?”  
  
Grace sighs. “You could say that.”  
  
“Hey, hey,” he coos, wrapping his arms around her back. “It’ll all settle down. She’ll be mad for a little bit but then she’ll find a new passion. Finally turn the house into a poultry sanctuary. Maybe get a neck tattoo now that you aren’t there to stop her.”  
  
Grace leans back into his embrace and bites her tongue. The urge to snap at him bubbles in her throat. To scream, _No it won’t be okay. I broke her heart and I’m not even sure why. I broke her fucking heart and in a way I broke my own and I know eventually I’ll break yours too._ But she doesn’t say that, because if she says that she’ll be admitting that this was a mistake and right now she needs to convince herself that it isn’t. She needs to keep telling herself that if Frankie wants to get a neck tattoo, or paint the entire beach house vybrant purple that it isn’t her business anymore. That she made her choice and she has to at least give it an honest try.    
  
“You have to put yourself first for once.” Nick offers softly into her ear and she knows he’s trying to help. Knows exactly what it’s like to marry someone and know that they aren’t fully there with you, just hoping one day they might.  
  
“I know! It’s for the best. For both of us. I know that. I’m happy. I am.” She turns around in his arms and conjures up her best Say Grace smile.  
  
“I’m so happy too. I love you, and while I’m no eccentric artist I can give you anything you want. Just name it.”  
  
_Oh he’s trying so hard._  
  
“How about a drink?”  
  
“It’s 11 in the morning.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“Two mimosas coming right up!” Nick declares and taps Grace on the ass before heading back into the kitchen.  
  
Grace looks at her bags, then at her phone. _No messages._  
  
She sets it on the entry table and follows Nick.  
  
“Oh god.” She groans suddenly as she sits down on a bar stool, facing him.  
  
“What?” He asks, already visibly out of his element making the simple drinks.  
  
“I just remembered I have children.”  
  
Nick laughs heartily, “You make it sound like they’re toddlers you forgot in the car.”  
  
“Its worse, they’re adults I have to tell we eloped.” Grace takes a sip of the mimosa and wishes it was vodka. “They already think I’m inept and decrepit, impulsive life changes don’t really work well in my favour.”  
  
“Maybe they’ll be happy for you?” He asks entirely too optimistically.  
  
“You’ve met them right? They wouldn’t even know how to begin being happy for me.”  
  
“Well then fuck em right?” He grins and oh, it makes Grace’s heart ache. Why can’t she be happy with him? Why can’t this be her happily ever after? Why does him inserting himself into the fuck it lifestyle seem like such a betrayal to hers and Frankie’s life. _You don’t have a life with Frankie anymore_ , she thinks, _this is your life now._  
  
“Yeah. Fuck em.” She says raising from the stool and walking around the counter. She wraps her long arms around Nick’s neck. “I have everything I need right here.” It does the trick and Nick leans in, pushing her against the counter as he kisses her neck roughly. Grace captures his lips with hers as he lifts her gently up onto the counter. She moans on cue, and runs her sharp nails across his back. She needs to push Frankie out of her own consciousness, and this’ll do it, even if it will pull herself out too.

 

* * *

  
  
Across the city Frankie finds herself back at the beach house, and unlike a few weeks ago, she has to talk herself into going back in. Part of her hopes Grace is inside; that she came back to pack some bags and decided her toothbrush wouldn’t look right on Nick’s marble bathroom counter, that her lipsticks would be too much work to rearrange into a different drawer.  
  
But when she finally enters the house it’s quiet, and she knows everything that once made it a home is gone. She walks slowly through the rooms on the main floor, and even though they look the exact same she feels like she’s in a museum. Untouchable signs of a life once lived; like the house of a dead celebrity that tourists go to gawk at, saying: _can you believe they lived like this? Everything just looks so normal?_  
  
With her hand on the banister she makes the slow trek upstairs, a part of their house that was once _Robert and Grace’s_ and then Just _Grace’s_. And then sometimes recently, _Grace and Frankie’s_. A part of the house she had just finally found herself comfortable in now feels more foreign than ever. Grace’s door is open slightly and Frankie isn’t sure if she’s ready to play the game of spot the difference; to see her vanity lay bare without all of those pretty perfume bottles Frankie had never been used to before moving in together. Isn’t even sure if she’s ready to walk into a space that smelled so authentically of Grace.  
  
_'You’re my partner and I need you',_  Grace had said.   
  
_Oh_. Frankie clutches at her chest. She wonders why partnership is always so synonymous with leaving. How at 73 she’s never known a love without heartbreak.  
  
When she walks inside it looks nearly the same and she feels dumb for thinking Grace possibly could have moved everything out in a matter of hours. The bed is neatly made, the curtains are open and the warm light casts a soft hue across the floor. It doesn’t feel empty or abandoned like Frankie thinks it should. It looks as if Grace had popped in to say _bye for now room, see you again soon_ , but just as the thought crosses her mind, she sees it. On the bedside table that once housed her latest book, her reading glasses, four bottles of pills; Grace’s key. Frankie walks over, picks it up in her hand and half sits half collapses onto the bed. Frankie had painted both their keys when they got the house back the second time. On Grace’s, bright orange and yellow hues flowed languidly across the front, and when placed next to Frankie’s calming blues and white they completed the picturesque beach front that had centred their lives for the past few years.  
On the backs she had painted a loopy G and F, respectively, in red hearts.  
  
Tracing her finger along the G, Frankie finally lets the heaviness sneak its way up into her throat and she lets out a heart wrenching sob.

_'And not only because we went through hell together.'_  
  
_'No! Because we made it back together.'_  
  
Frankie lays back on the bed and stares at the ceiling. She feels her tears cascade down towards her ears and she thinks about that night all those years ago. ' _And look! You even have cute ears!',_ Grace had exclaimed and Frankie had locked it away in her heart chest, thought about it sometimes when she looked in the mirror. She kept all of the nice things Grace said to her there, all of the deep looks, and the hand holding, and the promise kisses. ' _And I like that, sometimes too much.'_  
  
How could Grace not see that Frankie was falling in love with her? How could she be so blind to what she was doing to the other woman? Frankie doesn’t remember the first time she looked at Grace and _really_ looked at her. Doesn’t remember the first time she laid in bed and couldn’t get her out of her mind. Or the first time she felt the urge to kiss her on the mouth rather than the forehead. She knows a lot of that is because of Jacob. Because she was straight and in love and Grace was straight and in love and it’s normal to love your best friend more than anyone in the world, right? But then when it hit her it was almost too much to bear.  
  
' _I’m so sorry.'_  She had said to Jacob when they finally broke up; not dissimilar to Grace earlier today.  
  
_'It’s okay. Its partially my fault. I knew your heart belonged to her and I still tried to take you away.'_  
  
And maybe she had known it was there, a slight tickle in the back of her brain, but it wasn’t until someone else pointed it out that it felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.  
  
_I love her_ , she remembers thinking, _that’s why_. That’s why nothing else would ever feel like enough. Almost as if she was less Frankie without Grace.  
  
And it was okay that Grace was straight, as long as they were together in any sense of the word, it was okay. Because Frankie didn’t need more of her than she was willing to give. She just needed, _her_.  
  
But now she’s gone, and Frankie is glad she never told anyone about her feelings, because if Grace was meant to marry some rich skeeze, then her knowing would only make it hurt so much more. Wishing she could go back and tell Grace six months ago that she was in love with her won’t make this go away, and for the first time Frankie knows that avoiding reality won’t help her get through it. She’s been down this road before, and this time she’s going to try to skip the first four stages of grief.  
  
Frankie pops the key into her pocket and sits back up on the bed. She is just about to leave Grace’s room when curiosity gets the best of her and she slowly opens the bottom bedside drawer, not able to not know whether or not in her haste Grace thought to take her... _no_. The purple ménage peeked out from underneath a silk scarf, her jar of yam lube nearly empty beside it. She doesn’t want to think this means Grace doesn’t need it anymore, that she’s satisfied now without it. Instead Frankie is glad, despises the thought of Nick touching the one thing that felt so intimately theirs. She closes the drawer and straightens the duvet, taking one last glance around before leaving the room behind.  
  
  



End file.
